Integrating GRU with a Kalman filter to enhance visual inertial odometry performance in complex environments

To enhance system reliability and mitigate the vulnerabilities of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), it is common to fuse the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and visual sensors with the GNSS receiver in the navigation system design, effectively enabling compensations with absolute positions and reducing data gaps. To address the shortcomings of a traditional Kalman Filter (KF), such as sensor errors, an imperfect non-linear system model, and KF estimation errors, a GRU-aided ESKF architecture is proposed to enhance the positioning performance. This study conducts Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) to prioritize and identify the potential faults in the urban environment, facilitating the design of improved fault-tolerant system architecture. The identified primary fault events are data association errors and navigation environment errors during fault conditions of feature mismatch, especially in the presence of multiple failure modes. A hybrid federated navigation system architecture is employed using a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) to predict state increments for updating the state vector in the Error Estate Kalman Filter (ESKF) measurement step. The proposed algorithm’s performance is evaluated in a simulation environment in MATLAB under multiple visually degraded conditions. Comparative results provide evidence that the GRU-aided ESKF outperforms standard ESKF and state-of-the-art solutions like VINS-Mono, End-to-End VIO, and Self-Supervised VIO, exhibiting accuracy improvement in complex environments in terms of root mean square errors (RMSEs) and maximum errors

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Joint Localization Based on Split Covariance Intersection on the Lie Group

This paper presents a pose fusion method that accounts for the possible correlations among measurements. The proposed method can handle data fusion problems whose uncertainty has both independent part and dependent part. Different from the existing methods, the uncertainties of the various states or measurements are modeled on the Lie algebra and projected to the manifold through the exponential map, which is more precise than that modeled in the vector space. The dealing of the correlation is based on the theory of covariance intersection, where the independent and dependent parts are split to yield a more consistent result. In this paper, we provide a novel method for correlated pose fusion algorithm on the manifold. Theoretical derivation and analysis are detailed first, and then the experimental results are presented to support the proposed theory. The main contributions are threefold: (1) We provide a theoretical foundation for the split covariance intersection filter performed on the manifold, where the uncertainty is associated on the Lie algebra. (2) The proposed method gives an explicit fusion formalism on SE(3) and SE(2), which covers the most use cases in the field of robotics. (3) We present a localization framework that can work both for single robot and multi-robots systems, where not only the fusion with possible correlation is derived on the manifold, the state evolution and relative pose computation are also performed on the manifold. Experimental results validate its advantage over state-of-the-art methods

Finite Impulse Response Filtering Algorithm with Adaptive Horizon Size Selection and Its Applications

It is known, that unlike the Kalman filter (KF) finite impulse response (FIR) filters allow to avoid the divergence and unsatisfactory object tracking connected with temporary perturbations and abrupt object changes. The main challenge is to provide the appropriate choice of a sliding window size for them. In this paper, the new finite impulse response (FIR) filtering algorithm with the adaptive horizon size selection is proposed. The algorithm uses the receding horizon optimal (RHOFIR) filter which receives estimates, an abrupt change detector and an adaptive recurrent mechanism for choosing the window size. Monotonicity and asymptotic properties of the estimation error covariance matrix and the RHOFIR filter gain are established. These results form a solid foundation for justifying the principal possibility to tune the filter gain using them and the developed adaptation mechanism. The proposed algorithm (the ARHOFIR filter) allows reducing the impact of disturbances by varying adaptively the sliding window size. The possibility of this follows from the fact that the window size affects the filter characteristics in different ways. The ARHOFIR filter chooses a large horizon size in the absence of abrupt disturbances and a little during the time intervals of their action. Due to this, it has better transient characteristics compared to the KF and RHOFIR filter at intervals where there is temporary uncertainty and may provide the same accuracy of estimates as the KF in their absence. By simulation, it is shown that the ARHOFIR filter is more robust than the KF and RHOFIR filter for the temporarily uncertain systems

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Multi-sensor data fusion techniques for RPAS detect, track and avoid

Accurate and robust tracking of objects is of growing interest amongst the computer vision scientific community. The ability of a multi-sensor system to detect and track objects, and accurately predict their future trajectory is critical in the context of mission- and safety-critical applications. Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) are currently not equipped to routinely access all classes of airspace since certified Detect-and-Avoid (DAA) systems are yet to be developed. Such capabilities can be achieved by incorporating both cooperative and non-cooperative DAA functions, as well as providing enhanced communications, navigation and surveillance (CNS) services. DAA is highly dependent on the performance of CNS systems for Detection, Tacking and avoiding (DTA) tasks and maneuvers. In order to perform an effective detection of objects, a number of high performance, reliable and accurate avionics sensors and systems are adopted including non-cooperative sensors (visual and thermal cameras, Laser radar (LIDAR) and acoustic sensors) and cooperative systems (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)). In this paper the sensors and system information candidates are fully exploited in a Multi-Sensor Data Fusion (MSDF) architecture. An Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) and a more advanced Particle Filter (PF) are adopted to estimate the state vector of the objects based for maneuvering and non-maneuvering DTA tasks. Furthermore, an artificial neural network is conceptualised/adopted to exploit the use of statistical learning methods, which acts to combined information obtained from the UKF and PF. After describing the MSDF architecture, the key mathematical models for data fusion are presented. Conceptual studies are carried out on visual and thermal image fusion architectures

Multi-Robot Relative Pose Estimation in SE(2) with Observability Analysis: A Comparison of Extended Kalman Filtering and Robust Pose Graph Optimization

In this study, we address multi-robot localization issues, with a specific focus on cooperative localization and observability analysis of relative pose estimation. Cooperative localization involves enhancing each robot's information through a communication network and message passing. If odometry data from a target robot can be transmitted to the ego robot, observability of their relative pose estimation can be achieved through range-only or bearing-only measurements, provided both robots have non-zero linear velocities. In cases where odometry data from a target robot are not directly transmitted but estimated by the ego robot, both range and bearing measurements are necessary to ensure observability of relative pose estimation. For ROS/Gazebo simulations, we explore four sensing and communication structures. We compare extended Kalman filtering (EKF) and pose graph optimization (PGO) estimation using different robust loss functions (filtering and smoothing with varying batch sizes of sliding windows) in terms of estimation accuracy. In hardware experiments, two Turtlebot3 equipped with UWB modules are used for real-world inter-robot relative pose estimation, applying both EKF and PGO and comparing their performance.Comment: 20 pages, 21 figure

Approximate Gaussian conjugacy: parametric recursive filtering under nonlinearity, multimodality, uncertainty, and constraint, and beyond

Since the landmark work of R. E. Kalman in the 1960s, considerable efforts have been devoted to time series state space models for a large variety of dynamic estimation problems. In particular, parametric filters that seek analytical estimates based on a closed-form Markov–Bayes recursion, e.g., recursion from a Gaussian or Gaussian mixture (GM) prior to a Gaussian/GM posterior (termed ‘Gaussian conjugacy’ in this paper), form the backbone for a general time series filter design. Due to challenges arising from nonlinearity, multimodality (including target maneuver), intractable uncertainties (such as unknown inputs and/or non-Gaussian noises) and constraints (including circular quantities), etc., new theories, algorithms, and technologies have been developed continuously to maintain such a conjugacy, or to approximate it as close as possible. They had contributed in large part to the prospective developments of time series parametric filters in the last six decades. In this paper, we review the state of the art in distinctive categories and highlight some insights that may otherwise be easily overlooked. In particular, specific attention is paid to nonlinear systems with an informative observation, multimodal systems including Gaussian mixture posterior and maneuvers, and intractable unknown inputs and constraints, to fill some gaps in existing reviews and surveys. In addition, we provide some new thoughts on alternatives to the first-order Markov transition model and on filter evaluation with regard to computing complexity